Changed Forever
by Epideme
Summary: At a secret facility, a major calibration error sends Vincent hurtling through dimensions, where he, and a heap of dangerous tech end up in the dragon realms. Vincent must team up with spyro to fight the atrocities this bizarre event has caused, as well as trying to get back home. But this new presence has stirred a strange evil. A human evil, who's origins run deep. OC's Fic R
1. Chapter 1

**Hello everyone! welcome to my new book! Changed Forever, now, this first chapter is a bit lengthy, but i can't go jumping into the action without talking a bit about the back-story now could I?! Well, I could. But that wouldn't make for a good read, so anyway i hope you enjoy it ;)**

**Additional: if any of you really struggle to understand some of the complicated parts, PM me and I will try and explain. **

******Disclaimer: I own nothing except my characters. Other canon characters and stuff are owned by their respective companies.**

******Exclaimer: You dont have to read it if you dont like it, no ones forcing you... hehehe...**

* * *

-Chapter One-

-Where it all began-

The summer suns blazing orange peak slowly rose over the horizon, casting gold across the vast stretch of the South Pacific Ocean, emptiness as far as the eye could see. As the rays of light expanded they hit something, a mountainside, protruding from the empty blue like a rocky monolith.

This speck on the sea, this 'island', was the isle of profectus. A small isle covered in dense jungle and smooth, golden sandy beaches, birds took flight from their nests in the side of the mountain and the jungle canopy's to bask in the glory of the sun, warming their feathers as they dived whirled and circled in the light of dawn

Many would say that this small stretch of land was a paradise, a haven. A sunny retreat for the rich, but those people didn't know that this island, for all intents and purposes did not exist in any records, maps or satellite images. This island was not a paradise, in fact its main purpose was to house a facility, a particularly dangerous facility with secrets inside that the world would hopefully never know.

And it is in this facility where the story begins

A high pitch beeping noise awoke Vincent up from a deep dreamy sleep, lights came on above his head as he tossed and turned trying to ignore the bleeps of the alarm clock. He pulled the duvet over his head in an attempt to block it all out; but the alarm was driving him nuts.

Vincent sighed angrily and furiously pushed the blanket off as he sat up, he rubbed his eyes and yawned before reaching over and thumping the snooze button on the alarm clock until it stopped annoying him.

'Stupid, bloody early rises, I hate them!' he whispered groggily to himself as he took his face out of his hands and looked at the 24 hour clock by his bedside which read: 5:30.

He kicked the last bit of duvet off his feet before placing them over the side, all the time wondering why he hadn't gotten used to the early rises, after all, Vincent had slept and woke the same way, in the same room on the same bed for about fourteen years, ever since his father had 'allocated' him a room at the age of one and a bit, with the alarm being introduced at about seven, but maybe he just needed more time to adjust.

He didn't really care though, an early morning was an early morning, Vincent was going to be tired no matter how used to it he became, and besides, he thought, it wasn't as if he was the only one who had to get up early. In fact it was regulation that all the staff in facility 2 got out of their rooms ready for work at about 6:00 in the morning.

Vincent stood up off of the bed and stretched, throwing his arms up in the air and straightening his back letting out a groan of pleasure as his muscles adjusted to the morning. He then took a sweeping look around his bedroom, but it wasn't just a bedroom, since facility 2 was a secret instillation, its entire workforce lived, worked and died in the facility, there was no going back, everyone got their own little home from home. They all looked the same, but the staff could personalize them to match their tastes for example Vincent had his room painted red, most of the facility was underground so everyone had to make do without windows, but for some reason the colour made him concentrate better when he was researching for a project set by his father

Vincent walked into his bathroom suite and went over to the sink. He turned on the hot water tap and splashed his face with warm water before drying up and looking at himself in the mirror.

Vincent Price was a 'tall, handsome, and clever' teenager, or at least he liked to think of himself that way, But he was definitely tall with a head of black curly hair atop a pair of dark grey eyes and nearing his sixteenth birthday, he was also clever in a way that most teenagers weren't, he was in all ways a young genius. He often toyed with the thought that he had been engineered, a prototype 'perfect' human, after all he was raised in a facility that was designed to explore the more exotic fields of science that society would go out of their way to stop, as the ethical and moral issues with the things that went on at facility 2 were off the charts, which is why it was all so secretive, but he just as often dismissed the idea as complete crap.

Vincent walked out of the bathroom and through the wall to wall arch that lead from the bedroom to the living area, as soon as he did this a soothing female voice came from speakers flush with the wall

'_Morning Vincent, it is five thirty eight on a Tuesday, the sun is shining bright for now but there will probably be a thunderstorm later on in the evening'_

'Morning RAI' Vincent said as he walked to his wardrobe and started to clothe himself 'RAI, why is it that you always mention the weather? You know I rarely go outside, and why would it matter anyway?' he asked, pulling a T-shirt over his head.

'_well Vincent I always like to entertain the possibility that you might one day step outside and explore the island you've lived on for fifteen years, rather than only going out to the beach recreation area for a tan and a little bit of fresh air'_

Vincent laughed, as he pulled some black jeans up his legs, RAI was facility 2's 'lady of the house' her full name was FERAI which stood for facility 2's environmental regulatory artificial intelligence, but so far as Vincent knew everyone just called her RAI, it made her sound more human, even though she was just a highly advanced computer with a witty sense of humour, he had even made her laugh once or twice, but her main purpose wasn't to give the scientists that worked at facility 2 someone to talk too, RAI kept everything running at an optimum level from air conditioning to core containment throughout all five levels of facility 2.

The facility didn't actually need five nuclear reactors but it made sure that if one of them failed, the failsafe on that floor wouldn't activate, if the main power was cut off to one of facility 2's floors, the back-up power supply would be activated which is essentially an enormous drain of power. When this runs out however, the failsafe becomes active. The facility housed things that simply weren't ready for the world, things that couldn't get out under any circumstance. When the failsafe gets activated, facility 2 would be disintegrated by the several thermo nuclear bombs that lined the walls of the underground complex. Out of the three facilities' currently built, only facility one was compromised to that extent.

The facilities were commissioned, paid for and planned in secret by the CEO of Organon industries, Milton Stadler, a fanatical scientist who wanted unhindered progress and would do anything to get it. He was a very powerful man.

Organon industries were the largest, most successful and most powerful pharmaceutical company on the planet. Vincent liked to think of it like the umbrella corporation from the resident evil series he was so fond of, except cooler, and with security protocols that aren't about as useful as a toaster in a bath, prone to shocking and at least one guaranteed death.

Once Vincent was fully clothed and had something to eat, he walked over to the door and as he did so a ray of light came from the top of the door frame and scanned him, the light flashed green and the door slid open.

Every person in facility 2 was surgically allocated a Genetichip, these were small Nano-computer chips placed in the users body, often in the back of the skull. Their purpose was to essentially tag all the staff in the complex, give them a clearance level and to keep record of their DNA. The chips could upload and receive information wirelessly to and from RAI's mainframe, this would allow for clearance level updates in the event of a promotion and monitoring where people were in the facility, it was essentially a key card and a tracking device that people couldn't steal for access to the base

'Goodbye RAI' Vincent said, walking out of the door

'_Vincent I'm everywhere in this facility at once, saying goodbye to me is pointless seeing as you won't ever leave'_

'Well you know me RAI, I'm a gentleman, I've a lady in my room, and I can't just leave without saying goodbye' Vincent replied sarcastically as he started to walk down the sterile white corridors of facility 2's living area, making gestures to fellow older scientists who, like him, were adjusting to the early morning RAI laughed slightly but didn't reply.

Vincent needed to go see his father, Edward Price; he had a project assigned to him that he needed to hand in today. As there were barely any people his age here, having a school in facility 2 seemed rather pointless, instead Vincent was brought up being tutored by a variety of willing scientists who were eager to get on his father's good side, and as such he was extremely knowledgeable about pretty much anything science related, he was a genius after all, and although he was not technically qualified to work at facility 2, it's not like he could leave, and even if he could his father wouldn't allow it.

Vincent was approaching the centre of facility 2's first level; the tram room. This is where all the workers of facility 2 went after they woke up to go to their designated working zone.

Floor one was the living area, where the workers came for some R&R after their lab work if it wasn't an overnight job, which often it was. Floor 2 was the white-zone labs and it was designed to support psychological experiments and engineering developments, it required the lowest level of clearance. Floor 3 was the blue-zone and its purpose was to develop new computing technologies, mainly artificial intelligence, it was also the area that housed RAI's motherboard. After that floor was the green-zone, which was designed to house biological experiments, genetics, stem cell research and neurobiology. Floor 5 was the red-zone labs. That was where all the really dangerous things went down, and it required the highest level of clearance, which Vincent did not have, his father had only provided him with a level four on his key-card.

Vincent entered the tram room, the total population of facility 2 was about 340 people, but there was only about 90 people in the very large open space of the tram room, the room itself was shaped like a very large semicircle, at the peak of the semicircle was the entrance to facility 2, outside there was a very large concrete platform where various air hangers and landing pads allowed for imports of food and lab equipment, and sometimes very important people from Organon industries who came to observe projects and decide if they were ready for the real world, among other things.

The walls that lead from the tip to the base of the semi-circle were dotted with various opened and closed doors that lead to the various living areas built to support facility 2's population.

The wall at the base of the semi-circle had 5 large rectangular openings that were flush with the wall, these holes were to let trams through to pick up workers and supplies and take them down to the lower levels of the complex.

There were grooves cut into the floor that came out of the openings to house the whole underside of the tram as well as its apparatus required for moving. This was to make the trams compartment level with the floor, purely for convenience.

There were 3 Trams currently 'docked' at their stations, the others were most likely heading down or up through the 5 levels of facility 2.

Vincent's father Edward price had been doing some overnight work down in the red zone, so Vincent couldn't go hand his dossier directly to him, he was not permitted into that part of facility 2, if he was seen he would be in significant trouble with Edward, and that's something Vincent didn't want to be, ever.

He walked to the nearest tram and joined the small cue that was formed at one of the 3 entrances to the trams compartment, well technically there were 4 entrances, but Vincent really didn't fancy vaulting the railing onto the trams electrified tracks just to get in quickly.

He stepped into the air conditioned space and felt a firm hand patting his shoulder, he turned his head and standing in the entrance behind him was a tall, very well built frighteningly pale man with a head of slivery grey, curly hair and a pair of deep indigo eyes.

'Guten Morgen Vincent' the man greeted in a deep German accent

'Oh hey Kelmore, I almost didn't recognise you' Vincent replied sarcastically

Kelmore laughed heartily as he and Vincent found a seat, Kelmore Kessler was one of Vincent's teachers and his best and only friend, he was also reasonably young and at times a bit of a sociopath, around 23, the closest to Vincent's age group than any other person in the facility, even though he didn't look like it at all. He could also be considered non-human, he wasn't an alien but he was changed enough to be considered as something else. This was because Kelmore was a survivor of the Omvenefix project.

Originally launched in facility 1, the projects goal was to create 'super soldiers' by inducing them with a drug called Omvenefix, which was produced by placing an extremely rare volatile liquid compound inside of an unwilling host, once inside them the compound would mix with adrenalin and other hormones, it would then evaporate a gaseous drug called Omvenefix through the hosts skin pores. Live, human hosts made better producers, as they provided a steady stream of the necessary hormones; unwilling hosts did even better, as they produced far more adrenalin.

The drug could then be injected into a subject's muscles and/or brain, greatly enhancing cognitive function, strength and agility. At first the project seemed to be a resounding success, but things quickly turned sour. An increase in demand resulted in the hosts that produced the Omvenefix receiving far more compound when producing batches of the drug, the hosts produced more but their bodies 'burnt out' more quickly, the compound fused with the hormones to0 quickly and so started to fuse with the host. This resulted in a shocking series of mutations turning them into mindless horribly deformed abominations, but the Omvenefix produced by the hosts with more of the compound in them was different, this was named Omvenetin and was put to testing immediately, this drug gave the host extreme regenerative properties on top of the effects of the old drug. Or at least that's the only thing they thought it did, but by the time Omvenetin was put to mass production it was too late.

The old Omvenefix super-soldiers were one by one being induced with the new Omvenetin, this was why there were a small amount of survivors and Kelmore being one of them because the new drug had terrible side effects. Vincent couldn't remember the laundry list of neurological disorders and awful symptoms it caused, but Kelmore had told him the results were similar to the rage virus from the film 28 days later, just without any means of spreading, but with a 100 strong army of genetically enhanced regenerating super soldiers facility 1 was lucky to have survived that disaster without a facility wide decontamination. Kelmore had told Vincent that they simply just had to quarantine the area of the facility with the 'infected' in and wait till they starved. They then disposed of all their Omvenetin reserves and sent the remaining Omvenefix soldiers to help staff the newly constructed facility 2; they numbered about 7, including Kelmore, all near the top of their respective fields.

The doors of the tram slid closed, making a light beeping noise as they did so and the tram smoothly and slowly followed its track forwards and downwards into the white-zone labs

Vincent sat in one of the comfortable chairs that lined the sides of the tram next to Kelmore, he then turned to him and asked quizzically 'Kelmore I was actually on my way to see you down in the green zone, I thought you were doing some overnight work on cross species genetics?'

'Well your father wanted me to escort you to him before you did anything else today; he said it was important; you wanted to see me, why?'

Vincent paused, looked at Kelmore for a second before saying 'uh… well I just wanted to ask you to give my project to my father'

'Well I suppose you can give it to him when you see him' Kelmore responded as if everything were ordinary

'… But my father's down in level 5'

'I know, you've been given temporary clearance, I'm just here to make sure you don't get lost'

'Oh' Vincent mumbled slightly puzzled, breaking his gaze and straightening his back against the chair

'What does he want to see me about?' Vincent asked not looking at Kelmore, still wondering what it could be

'He didn't say, but don't worry it's probably terrible' Kelmore joked, he laughed and slammed Vincent on the back with his hand, Vincent too laughed, but the laugh was empty, he was worried, he had never been in the red-zone before and he wondered if he was in trouble, he didn't know why or if he was just paranoid, but his father was known to be slightly ruthless and Vincent didn't want to face his wrath.

Kelmore looked around and saw Vincent's look of concern, he placed a hand on his shoulder and said firmly but comfortingly 'don't worry, the red-zone has some awful things in it, but it is safe, and your father is a good man, I doubt this is about a punishment'

'Cheers' Vincent thanked Kelmore half heartedly

Kelmore paused then smiled, looked at Vincent and said half serious 'don't get too happy, I'm coming round yours later'

'Why?'

'Your initiation exams for a level five clearance start today'

Vincent just sighed and remained silent

'I'll be at yours at 8 tonight' Kelmore finished.

Vincent thought to himself that it was just going to be one of those days

A few minutes went by as the tram descended into the facility, stopping temporarily at its designated stations in each of the levels of facility 2 to pick up and drop off new people. By the time the tram arrived at the entrance tunnel to facility 5 Vincent got a couple of strange looks as the tram docked at its station to pick up and drop off people, they probably didn't get the memo that Vincent was allowed down in level five, but when they saw Kelmore they averted their gaze and sat down.

The tram slowed to a halt as it arrived at its station, there was a surround sound chiming noise and the three doors of the tram slid open. Passengers all around Vincent arose; he himself was one of the last to exit the bus-like transport. Kelmore was waiting by a large metal container mounted on an unmanned forklift. He gestured for Vincent to follow, and that is what he did. Vincent looked back as the tram ascended with its new load of people and equipment, he longed to be on it, he felt very out of place here, he'd lived in facility two all his life and he'd only really heard stories about this place. Even if he wanted to he couldn't sneak down here without clearance, there were scanners at the entrances and exits to the tram tunnels that went from one level to another, similar to the ones mounted on the doors of his living quarters, and everyone else's; the tram just wouldn't go if there was someone with insufficient clearance on board.

They passed multiple lab workers heading in different directions to and from the many side entrances that lead to different parts of the red-zone labs, the room itself was almost an exact duplicate of the first floor a semi-circle, but just rotated 180 degrees, with side entrances and one large main door that lead away from the tram room deeper into the complex.

Vincent and Kelmore reached this door, Kelmore nodded towards an intimidating security guard standing by the controls that operated the large titanium blast doors, which, sealed automatically in the event of a 'minor' emergency. They passed through the threshold into a large air-conditioned T-junction-corridor, Vincent didn't know what was down the corridor to his left but they kept straight, moving down a ramp. Kelmore kept quiet as did Vincent. The corridor opened into a lobby room with a desk, placed in front of a large cylindrical fish tank with corridors leading off behind the tank and to its left and right

There was a stick thin lady sat behind the desk tapping away on a keyboard, she stopped and looked up at Kelmore, a warm smile spread across her pale face as she greeted him with a light Russian accent 'hey there Kelmore, it's good to see you'

'You too Natalka, I'm here to see Edward if I could just go on through'

Natalka, like Kelmore Was a survivor of the Omvenefix project, she had long silvery hair made into a pony tail that reached just down to the back of her shoulders, and a gaunt face with a pair of indigo eyes, she was into her thirties and way out of his league, but Vincent still found her attractive.

'Sure, Edwards back there, turn left, third door on the right, MTM lab 1, can't miss it' Natalka replied, gesturing with her thumb where they should walk

Vincent was busy admiring the array of tropical fish that were swimming around in the tank, but he noticed Kelmore keeping eye contact with Natalka for longer than necessary, smiling all the while, which, Vincent thought suggested that there was more going on between the two than just friendly greetings.

Walking round the gargantuan fish tank and heading down the corridor, Vincent and Kelmore passed many large thickly glassed windows placed next to doors that viewed the interior of the large separated labs. Some were busy and some had nothing happening in them, the couple passed a particularly nasty lab where several men in hazmat suits were making futile attempts to clean the blood that was spattered across every part of the room, Vincent couldn't see clearly through the gore and cartilage that decorated the window but he thought he saw the remains of an unfortunate test subject. Vincent didn't want to ask Kelmore but felt he had to

'What happened to that poor sod? He asked

'You really want to know?' Kelmore replied

Vincent said nothing and pushed the thought to the back of his mind, Kelmore wasn't even fazed by the horrible scene and Vincent realized that he had probably seen a lot of things like that. They continued on down to the end of the corridor where they approached another T-junction, they turned left and eventually reached the lab Natalka mentioned on the right side of the hallway, on the door were the words Matter transmission mechanism lab one.

They approached the door and a white grid of light passed over them, the light flashed green and the door opened.

Once inside Vincent looked around, the room itself wasn't huge, maybe just a little bigger than his living quarters and more open, immediately to his left was a three-manned computer console with a reinforced glass screen that went up about 2 metres then met a large metal frame that came out of the ceiling; Vincent guessed it was a blast shield. The lab itself was split into two pieces, the piece he was in now was walled off from the main testing area, and Vincent was standing in front of a large steel door which said: WARNING TEST AREA. HAZARDOUS MATERIAL SUITS MUST BE WORN AT ALL TIMES. The door lead into a small decontamination airlock with hazmat suits on hung on the walls, presumably it was to remove any hazardous substance before they came back into the console room to begin testing.

The pair walked towards the console where two people sat, and one stood back against the thick glass that viewed back into the corridor, this man was Edward price, he stood tall, a somewhat proud man just into his fifties, with a head of short, greasy, curly, greying hair with bags under his small brown eyes and grey stubble ruling his aging slender face; suggesting a series of late and stressful nights hence the coffee held in his hand. Edward took a sip as he turned to look at Vincent, he gave a tender smile as he pulled his son into a short hug, being careful not to spill hot coffee over himself or Vincent, and he then pulled away.

'Thank you professor Kessler,' he said addressing Kelmore with slow and sincere look, Kelmore just nodded. 'Now, Vincent, I wanted to talk to you' seeing his sons uneasy look he added 'oh don't worry, it's not a punishment but…' he paused for a second 'the news couldn't really be called good either' Vincent's stomach sank 'it's about your mother…'

Vincent became instantly confused, and totally forgot the project dossier in his hands. For as long as he could remember his father had told him that his mother had died in child birth, and he had left it at that, Vincent had just assumed that the topic made Edward uncomfortable

'It's just that, you're coming to a milestone in your life and I wanted you to know the truth, I've, I've, lied to you for so long, and I, I feel like I should tell you the truth' Edward added

Vincent had never seen his father like this before, it might have been the several late nights and coffee affecting him, but it didn't change his curiosity, Vincent had become intrigued…

'What do you mean? You've lied to me? What's the truth!?' Vincent blurted

His father was sat down now; he took a long swig of his coffee before turning the enamel mug upside down letting a few drops of coffee hit the floor, he raised his hand up to his eyes rubbing them shamefully, he sighed and was about to say something when the door to the decontamination airlock whirred open, a man stepped through the heavy steel doorway, faced Edward and said 'were good to go professor' before hurrying to his seat as Edward stood up and guiltily told Vincent to wait a little bit.

Vincent walked behind the console, standing next to his father and peered into the test chamber. This second part of the room was well lit and about one metre lower than the console room; it sloped down from the console room and there was a ramp in the back right corner of the room that lead down from the decontamination chamber, the floor of the room had two large mechanisms protruding from circular pads on the floor spaced about five metres apart with part of the machine going into the ceiling, there were two large titanium posts on each pad that were fixed to the floor that were shaped like blocky pincers; coming out of the pad at an angle, straightening up to become perpendicular at a 90 degree angle to the floor then angling inward to essentially form an incomplete and strange looking metal archway. Around it was essentially a thinner, inverted duplicate of the unfinished arch, except this version was mounted to what Vincent assumed to be a very powerful motor on the ceiling, this part of the mechanism looked like a claw that was trying to pick up the arch beneath it, the gap between the two metal structures was small but Vincent could tell that the outside arch was lined with a brilliant white metal, that glowed radiantly. The outside arch was able to swivel around the fixed arch without being interrupted, presumably to create some sort of field. The other circular pad looked exactly the same as the first one but the main difference was that there wasn't something in the centre of the second pad. Vincent focused his gaze and there, placed dead centre in the middle of the first pad was a cage with a medium sized rat squeaking happily, unaware of its impending doom.

The fluorescent metal caught Vincent's eye again and he turned to Kelmore as his father was busy directing the scientists sat at the console and telling them what to do. Kelmore met Vincent's gaze as he asked quietly

'What is that glowing white metal?'

'That, Vincent, is uneupentium, it is extremely rare and implications for the laundry list of bizarre effects it can have are still being tested, one of them is apparently matter transmission'

Vincent was about to ask some more questions when his father inadvertently cut him off; he had taken a small old fashioned voice recorder out of his lab-coat and had his finger on the recording button whilst speaking into the tiny microphone.

'professor Edward price MTM test log entry fifty seven…' he said the number so bitterly that Vincent actually recoiled a little; his father had probably spent a good part of the last couple of days at this and it obviously hadn't gone well… 'Initiating test number fifty seven, using viable mechanism calibration E-7, subject is within testing area, engage the mechanism.'

Edward leaned forward and gave a nod to one of the console operators, Vincent watched as all three of them started tapping away at keyboards and furiously making tiny adjustments on the rest of the console. Vincent directed his gaze through to the testing area and saw the mechanisms begin to move. The outer claw on each pad started to turn, faster and faster, Vincent stared; entranced by the machine, as it started to glow, with an ominous white light.

He was unfortunately drawn away from the amazing spectacle before him, as once more, his father was addressing him in a slightly guilty tone.

'Vincent I… I have told you the truth, I can't say I told you all of it though, you're mother, she died bringing you into this world, just… just not the way you would think…'

His father however was cut off, as something was happening in the testing area, and Vincent could tell that from his father's expression that it wasn't anything good. A stream of curses came from Edwards's mouth as he saw what was happening; he shoved the man at the middle of the console out of the way and was now furiously fiddling around with the console. Vincent decided to peer through the glass to see what was happening himself, as did Kelmore. he saw that the mechanisms outer claw had either broken or misaligned itself, the motor frame and the outer claw were shaking violently, when all of a sudden a brilliant burst of white energy radiated from the sender node, it seemed to just ignore the reinforced glass and wall passing straight through them, and everyone in the room either swore, gasped or both, but then his father took charge of the situation.

His father half turned to Vincent whilst screaming at the three console attendees to shut it down. He then directly addressed Vincent and Kelmore

'Vincent I'm sorry, we'll talk about this later, I have to address this first, I'll come meet you in your living quarters when I'm done down here, Kelmore, take Vincent back up to his room and tell him to wait there…'

Kelmore agreed without question and he and Vincent made their way out, Vincent still clutching his project folder in his hands, feeling extremely confused about what his father had told him.

~=~ Later ~=~

Vincent was in his living room area, enjoying the wonderful combination of pizza and Hellboy. It was 10 past eight at night and either Kelmore or his father had to turn up soon, perhaps even both of them would turn up at the same time.

No matter how hard he tried Vincent couldn't shake what his father had told him, it was constantly there nagging at the back of his head: _'what was the whole truth?' 'What wasn't his father telling him?'_ And _'Had his father lied about anything else?' _these and other such questions had been bothering him for a good part of the day and hadn't allowed him to concentrate much, or enjoy the film he was watching.

Vincent finished eating then switched off the monitor. He turned to look at a wall clock in frustration, he knew his father could be late sometimes but also knew that Kelmore just wasn't the late type. Like, he wasn't late, ever. Vincent remembered hating him at times for turning up for particularly dismal revision sessions, on time, sometimes even turning up a little early. But when he wasn't being a serious professor, Kelmore could be a great laugh.

Vincent waited a couple of more minutes before deciding enough was enough. It was now half-eight and still no sign of someone trying to come in

Vincent spoke aloud to apparently nobody. 'RAI, You there?'

'_I'm always here Vincent' _a soothing female voice said calmly

'Yeah well, it makes me more comfortable.'

'_If you insist'_

'Anyway, can you tell me where my father and Kelmore are?'

'_Your father and Kelmore are down in the red-zone labs, your father is in MTM lab 1 and Kelmore is moving to meet him'_

'Right, ok' Vincent paused to think for a moment before continuing 'when does my level 5 temporary clearance expire?'

'_Clearance expires T-minus three hours and thirty minutes'_

And without another word Vincent was out of his door and on his way to his father

The second trip to the red-zone was far more daunting for Vincent than the first, as there was no Kelmore with him, but the worst he got were a few strange looks and a fright when the trams scanner passed over him at level 4's station.

Vincent passed through the massive doors and the security guard only stared at him curiously before returning to doing nothing. Vincent passed the corridor to his left, down the ramp, and through the office with the comically large fish tank into the corridor behind it. He stopped however at the left corner of the corridor as he heard several voices and what sounded like a struggle. He poked his head round the corner and saw Kelmore. Being restrained by two heavily decked out security personal.

The unfortunate Kelmore had his vision obscured by a makeshift blindfold, he was also gagged hence the furious mumbling. Kelmore's enhanced muscle and agility counted for nothing against the personal in MK 3 exo-power armour, who, if they wanted to could tear Kelmore open easier than a packet of dry roasted peanuts.

Kelmore and his captors disappeared into his father's lab. Vincent needed to get closer, but had a feeling that things would get ugly fast if he showed up unexpectedly, and there wasn't any out of sight places he could go to listen in that immediately came to mind. He looked past the lab door and the glass screen and saw the entrance to a ventilation duct.

Bingo.

He had a hard time removing the grate but Vincent finally managed to get in. he dropped to his hands and knees and crawled into the tiny cramped space. The grate was close to the floor to allow maintenance units easy access for repairing fans and other things in the system. From where Vincent was, the shaft directed up. Vincent managed to stand and pull his upper torso to the tunnel above. From here he hauled the rest of his body up and through the small tunnel.

He could hear voices now, muffled by the several obstructions but none the less he was close. Vincent felt awfully claustrophobic in the cramped space, there wasn't enough room to turn around and if someone replaced the grate he would be screwed. So he had to be quick. He shuffled through the vents a bit more until he saw another grate, this time leading to his father's lab, he could hear the voices more clearly now as he quietly got closer to the opening.

The opening itself was placed in the upper left corner of the wall furthest away from the door, from his position Vincent could see part of the decontamination unit, all of the console room and the sender node of the MTM testing area.

Vincent suppressed a gasp, he saw, clear as day, Kelmore, cuffed to the titanium posts on the sender node. He was utterly confused, what was Kelmore doing there and what was his father doing?! He thought. His father's nervous actions were jittery and disjointed, Vincent suspected a sleep deprivation coffee overdose combo.

One of the personal in the clunky power armour sidled through the heavy steel door and nodded at Edward. Vincent's father stumbled to the console and placed his finger on a small green button, Edwards's voice sounded in the testing area and the console room. The button was obviously for intercom.

'I wouldn't struggle Kelmore you'll damage the mechanism even more, who knows what could happen then?' his father paused to grab a cup of coffee of the console and glug the tepid drink straight down. 'don't worry, I think I'll calibrate it so your death will be relatively painless… at least you'll die in the name of science…' Edward threw the coffee mug with hatred and it shattered on the floor just beneath the grate. Vincent stared, shocked as his father feverishly tapped and hammered the console. The mechanisms started to turn just as they had before. They started to glow just as they had done before. But they also did something new, and from his father's confused expression, Vincent could tell that this definitely hadn't happened before. The glow became far more intense, and small amounts of white electricity arced from the sender mechanism.

Vincent could see his father slowly back away from the console and look hastily around for help, like a lost child trying to look for something. The arcs of electricity grew larger and eventually the combination cracked the glass screen.

Vincent's father directed his attention to the security personal, who were also freaking out 'G-get everyone out of here!' Edward moved hastily to the door out of the lab as he almost shouted 'E-evacuate the red-zone!'

Vincent couldn't even see Kelmore anymore, and as the glass screen shattered Vincent started to freak out, his claustrophobia got the better of him and he spent unnecessary time shuffling about in the tiny cramped space.

Eventually he got out of the vents and looked around. Alarms were sounding now and the air was a strange white haze. There weren't any people around, they had all probably evacuated already. Vincent progressed towards the tram room but as time increased he found it hard to breathe and, as the white haze became more obscuring, Vincent's skin also began to tingle. As he passed the fish tank things began to get difficult, there was a distinct crackling of electricity all around him and Vincent was now in a lot of pain, he made the gruelling journey up the ramp and could see the tram room. The huge blast doors were still open and he could see his father directing workers and scientists to the trams, vincent opened his mouth to scream at Edward out of anger and desperation, but either nothing came out or the shout was just inaudible.

Vincent screamed again, a little louder now and his father turned to the source of the noise. Vincent was now by a large heavy duty crate with hazard symbols on it and couldn't move anymore, the awful burning shocking pain was too much; Vincent was close to passing out. He saw his father say nothing, just run towards his in danger son, Vincent's vision was blurred but he could still see the titanium doors slide shut, he could see his father scream at the doors operator, but the last thing he saw was his father's grief-stricken, shocked face as the doors slammed close.

Vincent closed his eyes, he felt and heard the crate rupture as hazardous materials were sent everywhere, all over the floor, and all over him. He felt the sting of the electricity more than ever as it embraced him, arcing all around, crackling and consuming.

Vincent was finally offered an escape from the pain as he lost consciousness.

* * *

**Well, what do you guys and gals think? pretty intense huh? I am sorry if you found this a little long but dont worry its gonna get better ;)**

**leave a review if you like, and please, i dont mind constructive criticism, but if you came to flame, go away. Go be irrationally hateful on somebody else. nuff' said... **

**I dont know when the next chapter will arrive but fingers crossed it will be soon because my exams are almost finished :D**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hello everyone! epideme here, ok so the plan is im aiming to make each chapter around six-thousand words, and sorry for the long update, been a little busy :P; Oh and thank you guys for wishing me luck with my exams; they went well :D **

**Additional: IMPORTANT: dragons in this story are anthropormorphic (have human charachteristics) bipedal, wear clothes etc, im sorry if you don't like it but it just makes most of the concepts in this story so much easier.**

******Disclaimer: I own nothing except my characters. Other canon characters and stuff are owned by their respective companies.**

******Exclaimer: You dont have to read it if you dont like it, no ones forcing you... now, wheres my rifle suppressor**

* * *

-Chapter Two-

-Just Impossible-

Vincent slowly re-awoke; he drew in a long breath of dusty, heavily metallic air, all the while his ears ringing loudly.

Once his lungs had reached their peak, Vincent screamed, unbearable, and un-human amounts of pain flooded through his entire body; and even when there was no air left in him to scream with, Vincent's body Rattled and shuddered with spasms of stinging, bone wrenching pain.

Never in his life had Vincent experienced anything like this, all other thoughts and emotions were overwhelmed; it felt like his bones had all been dislocated at the same time, then put back the wrong way

Vincent's body had become desperate for air, and he took several short raspy breaths to stave off suffocation whilst impetuously looking around for a relief to the pain.

He dared only to move his neck, it hurt, but definitely not as much as it would have done if he moved anything else. His vision was blurred badly and the only thing he could make out from time to time was a bright flash and the sound of something electrical sparking.

He lied there on the cold, hard ground not moving to regain his senses and let the pain dull down by itself. For how long he was lying there Vincent didn't know, he was still unbelievably groggy but he slowly became aware of something heavy and, painful, crushing the right side of his body.

He groaned and reached for the object, the muscles in his arm burned but he endured the pain and grabbed the sharp metal edge of the object and heaved it aside, for some reason it seemed far easier than it should have been.

The remnant of the ruptured heavy-duty crate was sent clattering to the side, the loud noise rattled Vincent's head and his hearing became crisp and his vision less blurred. He coughed several times and sat up far too quickly, pain skyrocketed to his head and he groaned loudly.

Something about his voice sounded different, but Vincent had other things on his mind. He sat there feeling extremely light-headed with his eyes closed for a while to let the pain in his skull recede, as it did, he became aware of a new pain, his inner thigh was stinging, apparently when the chunk of crate landed on him it left a significantly deep gash on his right leg.

Vincent opened his eyes and stared down at his leg. Then his jaw dropped

For a moment he thought he was hallucinating.

But after staring in disbelief for what felt like a lifetime, he finally snapped out of his trance like state. Yes. It was definitely real.

It was dark and the badly damaged bar light above Vincent's head that randomly expelled electrical discharge and dim amounts of light didn't help visibility much at all. But the fluorescent white, glowing scales underneath the shredded remains of his jeans were definitely real, and they were definitely not normal.

Vincent immediately forgot about everything else. He looked closer at what used to be his skin, it was now replaced by a layer of very fine, brilliant white scales that swam with an ominous white, almost pulsating glow that seemed all too familiar, but Vincent couldn't put his finger on it.

He reached feverishly out to move aside shredded remnants of clothing that were obscuring Vincent's 'skin' he wanted to know if it was all over his legs as the panic slowly built up inside him; it was. These apparently were his legs now. But then something caught Vincent entirely off guard, his hands.

His hands were no longer his own.

Vincent stopped and held his hands closer up to his face for a better inspection; they looked similar to what they were before, but these new ones were considerably bigger, scarier and far more deadly. The fingers were thicker than before, slightly longer too, with each digit ending in dangerous looking, razor sharp claws that protruded from the white scales where his nails usually would have been.

He sat there just looking, turning his shaking 'hands' over and over in front of him, whilst the panic inside of him reached a dangerous level. Vincent ran his hands all over his new body, staring in complete shock at it all.

As well as the dully glowing white scales, he had a thick, leathery, segmented underbelly which ran up from his groin, which Vincent didn't really want to think about at the moment, to his belly then to his chest, the thick, pitch black leather ended somewhere underneath Vincent's chin, almost like some lizards Vincent thought

His new hands then got to his new, extremely different face. Vincent gently felt around his head and gave a small, whimper out of fear and shock. The panic reached breaking point. He began to hyperventilate as his hands wrapped around two, long slightly curved horns that came out around the back of his head and then another pair, slightly lower than the last two; in fact there were four pairs of sharp curved horns altogether that, from the top of his head, decreased in length and curved very slightly outward. He felt around for ears but he didn't have any. Another frightened whimper escaped his mouth. Instead Vincent felt two, small holes behind these horns, like nearly all lizards have.

"This, this isn't happening it, it's all a nightmare!" Vincent stammered to himself, desperately running his hands all over his horns with a strong sense of dread

The initial pain from what Vincent thought to be a complete metamorphosis was nearly all gone, but the sharp pain radiating from the gash in is leg destroyed that hope of this being just a bad dream.

His hands got to the front of his face now; which was anything but flat. Vincent had a thick, scaly snout that protruded from his face with the top of his nose slightly raised, his lower jaw extended to just before the end of the upper jaw; yes, it definitely felt all too real to be a dream.

Vincent opened his long muscular mouth, and carefully felt around inside. His jaws were lined with a single row of large and considerably sharp teeth. He then got to his tongue, which he moved around inside his maw. It felt strange, not as strange as the situation Vincent found himself in, but he stuck it all the way out to try and get a look all the same. His tongue was flatter than his human tongue, longer too; it was also forked on the end, yes, definitely strange, no wonder he sounded different.

He stopped fondling his face and sat, breathing heavily, trying to gain control of the situation. Not as panicky now as he was before he closed his eyes and thought about what his body had transformed into.

'_Ok, horns, forked tongue, sharp teeth, claws, scales, underbelly, I'm definitely reptilian that's for sure…' _

Vincent's train of thought was derailed as he realised something. He opened his eyes and looked at his hands. He waggled his long clawed thumbs and bunched his hands into fists.

'…_But reptiles don't have opposable thumbs do they? What the hell am I?'_

Vincent's eyes widened when he realised another thing

'_If I'm a lizard, or something, surely I have a tail?'_

Vincent twisted his upper torso, which felt far more muscular and powerful than it was before, once he couldn't turn anymore before it started to hurt, Vincent twisted his long sinewy neck and peered behind him. Sure enough, he did have a tail; it too had unstably glowing white scales and a black leathery underside.

But what gave him the biggest shock out of all the crazy things that had happened were the glowing, scaly white, stiff tendons and the thin black membrane in-between them.

He just stopped and stared.

Wings

He had wings.

A sound escaped his mouth that sounded like a cross between utter confusion and amusement, he twisted his neck round to look at the other side and let out a small laugh and grinned, which felt very strange, but he didn't care.

Vincent dint know what to feel, it was great and terrible at the same time; but he no knew what type of reptile he was; he was a dragon.

Surely not

That would just be ridiculous?

'_This whole situation is ridiculous…' _Vincent thought to himself, while carefully observing his wings.

The wings themselves looked huge, and were connected to his back with what seemed to be a second pair of arms, just weirder, and much harder to control. The membrane in-between the sinuous tendons felt delicate, but after a while just sitting there fiddling with them; Vincent accidently scratched it with one of his claws and the thin layer of silky skin was lightly damaged, but not ripped. Upon further inspection he could see the wings had ripped through the back of his shirt, revealing the membrane from the tendon closest to his back connected to his back.

'_well that's going to make putting on T-shirts difficult' _he noted to himself absentmindedly.

Vincent tried to move the new appendages in an attempt to get used to them a bit more, but only resulted in them just swaying around wildly; he stopped being so careless however; when he whacked them into the remains of the heavy duty crate he was next to. He let out a small gasp from the pain, which went away almost instantly, overcome by the stronger, stingier pain from the deep cut in his leg.

Vincent finally managed to figure out how to fold the wings in close to his back to reduce the space he took up, and how to extend them again, but he'd told himself it would be a long time before he could lift himself off the ground, or even glide, let alone fly.

He didn't know how long he had been sat doing effectively nothing but freak out, but his mind was clear and he wasn't as scared now as he had been at first. But he made a note to himself that he had to get hold of a mirror or a decent reflective surface as soon as possible.

Vincent looked around again, less desperate and more slowly this time, allowing himself to take in the details. The place was a wreck. Rocky debris was strewn all over the floor as well as scrap metal from what used to be a large containment vessel for something hazardous. The bar light above his head was still emitting a dim glow and throwing out sparks and loud cracks from time to time.

'_At least there's still power, but what the hell happened here...'_

That's when the memories all came flooding back to him, at least, bits of them anyway.

_Bright lights, someone screaming, cramped space, another voice laughing manically._

_Edward, his father, intense light, sounds of panic._

Vincent shuddered and looked around for something he couldn't explain

_Cramped space, too cramp, can't get out, too late, static, noise, pain. Intense pain. Unbearable. his father's face, speechless, bright flash, burning, nothing._

_Who was the other? The one who screamed so painfully?_

_Kelmore, my father he… no…_

Vincent shook his head in disbelief, his father had attempted to kill his only friend in cold blood, and his recklessness had cost him dearly, his son, a large chunk, if not all of the red-zone labs gone, so much poured away because of his father's anger. For all Vincent knew Edward would believe he was dead, as well as Kelmore.

As much as the current situation he was in demanded Vincent's attention; he just sat there, with one question rattling around inside his scaly new head.

_Why? My father isn't a bad person; why would he do that, what reason?_

Vincent did not know the answer. To have that privilege he would need to find Kelmore; if he was even still alive.

Vincent tried to stand up but failed and fell on to one knee, these new legs were going to have to take some getting used too.

Eventually he got the hang of it, but he was still a little wobbly, and on top of that he hadn't mastered control of his tail, so it just swung aimlessly around when he tried to move it.

He took one step and regretted it immediately.

A very loud creaking noise resonated through the part of the superstructure he was in, and Vincent felt the ground shudder beneath his feet; which still had what was left of his heavy duty facility-issue boots, as the metamorphosis had apparently enlarged his feet and gave them claws similar to the ones on his hands. But those matters aside Vincent was now painfully aware that this part of the facility was dangerously unstable.

Vincent cringed as the cut on his scaly thigh stabbed him with another round of pain; he looked around, pivoting on the spot, not wanting to further compromise the integrity of the complex.

He was now facing where the large steel threshold to the tram room should have been, if there wasn't a gaping hole instead. On further inspection Vincent noticed that where the corridor suddenly ended, the exit hole wasn't jagged or decorated with twisted metal, the cut was clean, and it sawed half way through the large heavy duty crate; which as well, ended with a clean cut.

Vincent gulped; if he'd been lying any further towards that hole, he could have lost his head.

He also noticed the hollowed out chunk of scrap metal which used to be the crate lined with a glowing white liquid, with a colour and look almost exactly like his scales, it would drip from time to time down onto the floor then dribble out of the hole where the door should have been.

_What is that stuff?_

It was as if a little voice whispered it into his ear:

_Uneupentium_

Vincent now knew why his scales glow white, or at least he thought he might know: the metamorphosis must have included the uneupentium as a sort of catalyst maybe? And been absorbed into his skin?

'_Ahh whatever, I've got other things to worry about I'll figure it out later'_

Vincent was right, he did have other things to worry about, as he looked out of the hole, he realised that the landscape looked very different, for one thing it was wrong; the labs were underground that much was obvious. But what wasn't; was that Vincent couldn't see any ocean, anywhere. The isle of profectus was small; the ocean should be all around? All that Vincent saw were the tops of trees for a great distance, they were pretty far down too, which meant that he was a great distance, they were pretty far down too, which meant that he was high up. Really high up

It was no surprise that this part of the facility had moved, but where? How far? Vincent was clueless, he guessed he may have been in the amazon, but what happened next threw that theory out the window.

It was cloudy and drizzling ever so slightly, but moonlight still got through, Vincent almost missed it but the light glinted off of something that was flying not too far away from the exit. It looked like a bird; bigger than an eagle, it had very strange looking feathers, they were almost mirror like, reflecting the moonlight and cloudy sky almost perfectly. It opened its long pointed beak and cawed at him, it sounded like a crow but longer with a higher pitch. Vincent hadn't studied the amazon rainforest much but he knew that there was no such thing as mirror-feathered birds, and that worried him greatly, but then again, there was no such thing as dragons. Vincent came to the conclusion that he was someplace very different, but where and exactly how different? He didn't know.

He backed away from the gaping hole, now somewhat fully aware of the situation. He was in the red-zone, or part of it, which was god knows where, he was alone and the poor excuse of a light over his head gave tell-tale signs that either the power was failing or parts of the facility were without power. This was not a good thing. Most of the labs were held shut by deadlocked doors that would release in the event of power failure, allowing most of their contents to be able to get out. And when he was in the most dangerous level of facility 2 where some of the labs had engineered monstrosities in them, Vincent concluded that this was in every way: bad; and that he needed to get out quickly.

He turned around 180 degrees to face deeper into the corridor, he could see a bit of light coming round the corner from the junction further down to his left and decided to investigate, whilst walking over, he could see that further down the hallway that there was something blocking the corridor, it looked like a huge rock wall surrounded by scrap metal and wiring, it was as if the rocky pillar had come straight up through the floor from sheer force, almost as if someone had dropped the hallway onto it from a considerable height, because the floor and ceiling were mangled around this pillar, and small amounts of light were getting through, just enough to illuminate the jagged metal and confirm his suspicions that he was above ground.

He was approaching the T-junction when all of a sudden he stopped as the superstructure creaked heavily, then to Vincent's horror, slipped its supports; he lost his balance and as he fell to the floor Vincent could see the some of the jagged metal around the rocky wall twist and buckle as the chunk of facility 2 lowered ever so slightly; it stopped slipping but the ominous creaking continued for a while before it slowed to a halt.

Vincent slowly got to his feet; he suspected that the part he was standing on at the moment had nothing supporting it but that chunk of rock that sliced through the floor, and as such it was extremely unstable and could possibly give at any moment. He reached the corridor to his left and peered round, not wanting to move further away from the hallways supporting point.

This hallway looked even worse than around the base of the rocky pillar, it too, opened up to view a canopy of jungle tree's like the entrance to the red-zone, but it was far from being clean cut. Near the end the hallway visibly bent towards the ground where the weight must have strained it, large metal plates had come loose from the walls, floor and ceiling from the huge amounts of tension; revealing wiring and spilled coolant. The end of the corridor was lined with twisted metal beams where the part of the hall that should have been there had torn away because of its own weight.

There was a damaged information board that had come from the wall along with one of the plates, thankfully it was lying face up, but to Vincent's dismay the arrow that pointed to the scrap-metal-lined hole said: storage.

Vincent cursed under his breath; he needed to get out, but wherever he was, wasn't familiar territory, he needed supplies before he left and the only option the only option he could think of was now a smouldering pile of twisted metal below.

He needed supplies and he needed to get out, but what he needed most was to find Kelmore, he would know some answers, hopefully, and if he didn't he would still be some company, because being alone in a completely unknown place is the sort of recipe that can lead to death. That was; if Kelmore was even still alive.

Vincent moved towards the massive lump of rock that had sliced through the floor and was rewarded with a low pitch creaking. The rocky wall had pierced the floor and moved up through the ceiling and had blocked a good portion of the corridor; but it had left a small gap that Vincent reckoned he could fit through to get to the other side.

The sharp pain in Vincent's leg wasn't going away and he worried that the wound might get infected, what was left of his jeans in that area were soaked with blood; he needed to find bandages, or something that he could use to stop the bleeding a little, he decided to tear a hunk of his T-shirt away and wrap it around his leg.

'_It'll have to do…'_

That's when Vincent noticed something, a small, dim, rectangular red light about head height; two feet away from the rock. He walked over to it wondering what it was and then he saw a rectangular panel flush with the wall, it had nothing on, the light was dim and Vincent definitely would have missed it at a glance, but now he saw it and didn't know what it was.

Something twanged in his mind, something his father had told him way back. Vincent closed his eyes and tried to remember.

'_That's it; Emergency supply caches!' _he thought

Vincent remembered that a while back his father had told him, that in the event of facility being attacked or compromised in any way by escaped experiments or people, emergency supply lockers would power up and become available to any staff following a Genetichip scan.

These lockers would contain a variety of survival gear including food and water if any staff got cut off from rescue teams by debris, or other, nastier things; the locker would also contain a torch, G17 handgun with a few extra clips; to fend off dangerous escaped experiments or… blow your own brains out if you couldn't - it would be quicker and most likely less painful.

Vincent shuddered at the thought, he had only been in this part of the facility once and didn't know if the potential horrors that were down here were over-glorified or if they really were that bad, and if that was the case he didn't want to meet any of them.

He went closer to the well hidden panel then pushed it gently, the device beeped and the tiny LED switched from red to amber

"_Commencing scan"_

Vincent blinked as the ray of thin amber light swept up and down his face, it stopped then the computerized voice said:

"_Warning; insufficient clearance level recognised; security despatched."_

The amber light flashed back to red; but the computerized voice continued.

"_Error, link to FERAI mainframe not found; shutting down system."_

The red light blinked off, Vincent swore under his breath and thumped the panel hard, his temporary clearance must have automatically terminated, it seemed stupid to Vincent that these lockers required a clearance level, staff were staff, what, did the level fives get shinier guns? Vincent sighed

"Which moron programmed this? It's idiotic!" He almost shouted in frustration. "Well crap, now I really need to find Kelmore."

This was true, Kelmore was the only one with a level five clearance, and who was alive. Maybe; But either way Vincent needed to move through the facility, this part was unstable, he didn't want to stay in one place for too long for obvious reasons and if Kelmore wasn't alive he had to find some way out of the complex and take his chances in the jungle below; but he hoped it wouldn't come to that.

He squeezed past the rock and pushed aside a hunk of metal that was obscuring his sight. It clanged to the floor and revealed more rock at first glance. Upon an extended look though, it appeared that the T-junction area had been completely separated from the rest of the complex. Vincent could see the next part of the corridor was about five meters above him, and ended in twisted metal as did the corridor he was standing in currently, the floor in front of him was mostly gone, and he could see the dizzying height he was at, as well as a tall rocky spire that had a wide base and came straight up through the T-junction part, which explained what the rocky pillar was.

Vincent didn't know what was holding this chunk of hallway up, a rocky ledge perhaps, but he'd have to save the questions though as more creaking followed by a gut-wrenching movement of the corridor happened, he looked behind him and could see that the hallway was pulling away from the support of the rocky spire. It was now or never, he needed to get to that corridor higher up, it was an impossible jump and he was clueless about using his wings, there were however cables hanging down just within leaping distance, and a thin electrical cable that connected the two parts, too thin to grab though.

He had to move quickly, the hallway Vincent was in was nearly at a 45 degree counter-clockwise angle to the higher, safer hallway. He had to jump but his body nearly froze in fear

'_Jump, Jump! JUMP YOU MORON!' _a voice screamed in his head.

Vincent did just that, he aimed himself at a thick looking wire and leapt, just in time too, as the T-junction; with a horribly loud sound of metal on metal on rock finally gave; and fell, crashing down to the dark overgrowth of canopy below.

As Vincent flew through the air un-majestically, he came to the conclusion that the theory of; when life and death were on the line things seemed to slow down was total bullshit. They did not in any way slow down, his mind exploded in a range of emotions from sheer terror to elation. And then terror again as he realised he'd misjudged; he had leapt to hard and hit the wire hard; Vincent scrambled to grab on and hold on, all the while sheer panic taking over his expressions.

His shiny black claws dug in and for a moment he thought the tubing would rip as blue coolant spilled from what looked before as an electrical wire, which was good because the shock might have electrocuted him.

For a moment he just swung there and looked down as the huge lump of scrap finally made contact with the floor, sending up a loud crash. But, after a while he decided that was enough and attempted a climb up, he pulled himself up into the gaping entrance to the corridor, being careful not to cut himself more on jagged metal.

He stood up and wiped the coolant off onto his jeans, he noticed that he was shaking; no surprise there, it was amazing that he got out of that alive.

"Shit! That was waaay to close!" Vincent concluded, panting heavily

He could see that up ahead that the corridor's connection to the ramp looked dangerously unstable, and the part he was on now was slanting down a bit.

Vincent thought about how the corridor's and hallway's had become so damaged and wrecked and added to his previous theory of the facility falling on something; that, the facility, maybe not all of it was on a stable platform, perhaps a table top mountain, surrounded by rocky spires, the mountain would have to have a really large surface but he was just happy that he wasn't dead.

The T-junction was connected to a ramp, the increase in height must have made it structurally unsound, because obviously it wasn't designed to be above ground; when the facility dropped it appeared the long stretch of corridor, that connected to the T-junction and storage room from the ramp had buckled and snapped; the T-junction had fallen onto a rocky spire and wedged itself there, but the weight of the storage room had been too much, and so it had completely sheared away.

It was by sheer luck that Vincent was still alive

He stood and looked over the jungle below

'_This is ridiculous…' _Vincent thought; and with that he turned tail and went to find Kelmore; if he was still alive, but he knew where to look.

It was eerily quiet in this part of the facility; dark too, most of the lights had stopped working and Vincent didn't have a torch, which made moving through the corridors to the MTM lab difficult. He didn't even know it was there, but it was worth a shot.

Vincent was also trying desperately to be quiet, which was difficult because he was always tripping in the dark areas, he came to the conclusion that if there were anything around in the immediate area, they would have heard Vincent by now, but he didn't want to stick around to be disproved, so he tried to quicken his pace.

Vincent finally arrived at the lobby room, this place, like all the others he'd seen was wrecked. The desk which the pretty Natalka had once sat was overturned; papers and other desk-orientated things were strewn across the floor, and the large exotic fish tank had ruptured from the fall of the facility, there was broken glass everywhere, the floor was wet and there weren't any fish around, just smears of something around the floor. Blood; there had clearly been something here and Vincent's heart skipped a beat. He stood and listened out for anything, but nothing but the drip, drip, drip of a small amount of water left in the tank getting out onto the floor.

Once Vincent was sure he was safe; as safe as he could be in this situation; Vincent moved around to the other side of the tank and headed to the junction ahead of him. He took a left, just ahead of him the door to MTM lab one, and hopefully Kelmore.

He got to the door. To his surprise it was open, he pushed it aside and entered the console room, he looked left towards the console, no power, no nasty surprises either; he spared a quick glance to a ventilation grate in the upper right corner, where he had witnessed his father's horrible actions in his sleep deprived state. Vincent still didn't understand why, he'd been looking for answers at the back of his mind for a while, but still didn't have any.

He switched his gaze forward , to the reinforced steel door that lead to the decontamination airlock then to the lab, or, he looked at what used to be a large steel door anyway; the door itself was just a mess, it was a slab of buckled twisted metal that opened out from the doorframe; it was like something big, and hideously strong had tried to get out. Vincent just stared confused at the door, had Kelmore got out? He was enhanced but; Kelmore wasn't _that_ strong.

'_Maybe he's been changed as well… at least he's alive, maybe.' _Vincent thought, moving further into the lab

He doubted Kelmore was still in the testing area but he wanted to check anyway, he went through the decontamination area, stepping over a couple of hazmat suits that had been strewn across the floor; he started to go down the metal stairs and what he saw shocked and confused him even more; the frame closest to him, the sender node; had been twisted and in every sense of the word broken, the cuffs that had held the now absent Kelmore in place were just pieces of scrap on the floor and the metal pylons they were attached to were bent out of shape completely. But what really shocked him the most was the rocky plateau decorated with tufts of grass, scattered leaves and twigs where the other node had been, upon a closer look it appeared there was no rocky debris, the rock was just there, out of the floor.

It looked like there would have been more rock, but the floor had just sliced through it, seamlessly, it was like the two had perfectly fused together; like one had just; appeared in the other. Very strange, but what was the oddest was the fact that where the other node's arches had been. There was now a towering rocky structure, a damaged arch, with parts missing, decorated with vines and moss, and it wasn't the sort of dusty orange rock that was fused with the floor, this rock was a deep purple. It looked ominous, and Vincent could see parts of the old, metal arches sticking out the sides of the new weird rocky arch; like the rock had just materialized around the receiving node.

'_What the…!' _Vincent thought to himself, with a look of benign confusion stretched across his face.

He wanted to leave this creepy place; the light in the lab was flickering, casting strobes of light against the bizarre structure that didn't belong; Vincent thought it all must have something to do with the teleporter's, but he had no idea what, he was confused, disorientated, thirsty and worried, he'd try to figure it out later because right now he needed to find Kelmore, but where was he, if he wasn't here he would be somewhere else in the facility, and he probably didn't know that the place had moved so Vincent thought that he would go to the tram room to try and find and exact well deserved revenge on Edward.

But that was impossible, Kelmore would have seen Vincent and helped him if that were the case, or Vincent would have seen Kelmore on his way down to the lab; where was he?!

Vincent was distracted from his thoughts though when the lights died completely, not just the ones in the lab, the hallway too; suddenly, a booming alarm resonated through the facility, the sound filled his ears, it seemed to be coming from everywhere, no clear location, but what it said made Vincent's stomach drop.

"_WARNING, LEVEL FIVE REACTOR HAS BEEN DEACTIVATED; POWER LEVELS HAVE REACHED CRITICAL, DIVERTING POWER FROM ALL NON-ESSENTIAL SYSTEMS AND SWITHING TO BACKUP POWER SUPPLY. WARNING; ONCE EMERGENCY SUPPLY HAS BEEN DEPLETED, FACILITY 2'S FAILSAFE WILL BE ACTIVATED; ALL STAFF EVACUATE TO SAFE DISTANCE. FAILSAFE ACTIVATION IN T-MINUS 72 HOURS AND COUNTING"_

Vincent smacked himself mentally, how could he forget about the failsafe, how could he forget that he was potentially walking around inside ground zero of what could be a massive explosion. But at least he knew where Kelmore would be now; core containment. Vincent sighed, it would mean backtracking; and that noise might have woken up a lot of undesirable things.

He left the lab, and instinctively looked left, his heart stopped. He could see several figures in the very dimly lit end of the corridor; he didn't think twice, he sprinted out from under the dim blinking light to core containment.

He passed the shattered fish tank and took a right; seeing an information board which made it clear that the way he was going was to core containment, he could hear the mob of _things _close on his literal tail

He passed a lab with some monstrosity banging on the glass to get out and make Vincent into its dinner or kill-toy or something, Vincent ignored it, he didn't want to think about it, he reached the door to core containment; the corridor opened up a little bit and dead centre was a heavy steel door, that was closed; With no sign of Kelmore. He ran up to the door and tried to open it, his panicked state making him forget something important; a white grid of light passed over him then flashed red.

"_Warning, insufficient clearance level, security des…"_

It was strange, adrenaline and fear were pumping through him and he was so angry at the stupid idiotic clearance system, but when he glared at the scanner with hatred he didn't expect the synthetic voice to just stop, lucky coincidence maybe? It didn't matter though, the door wasn't opening and Vincent could hear then now, the gurgled screams of the bloodthirsty mob of abominations was at the end of the corridor and he was at a dead end. He closed his eyes as his soon to be killers came into the light about twenty metres ahead of him; he backed up against the door as far as he could go.

'_Is this really it?'_ Vincent thought to himself; he hadn't done so many things, best not to worry about it, he would be dead soon and that would be that; A lot of pain, then nothing.

The screams and twisted cries were getting closer.

Vincent wanted to cry, he let out a small whimper and a tear rolled down his scaled face. He hated his father but he wished he could tell him he loved him and apologize for all his mistakes.

Yes, so very close now…

But in that brief moment of forgiveness and terror, Vincent didn't notice the feel of the door on his wings disappear, he opened his eyes and noticed he was falling backwards, he landed on the floor, hard, near crushing his wings.

The door had opened; he felt himself being dragged backward and heard the door slide shut; followed by several angry thumps and screams muffled by the door. His eyes were still teary and he couldn't see much, but he wiped the tears away with the back of his hand and what he saw was a shock and a relief at the same time.

No less than a couple of feet away from his face was a barrel of a gun, held by a deep, ochre yellow, scaly, clawed hand. Vincent's eyes travelled up the body to meet the shredded remains of a lab-coat and then a draconic face with eyes of deep indigo and a thoroughly confused expression.

"Who the fuck are you!?" said an all too familiar German accent

* * *

**I wonder who that is!? hehe, hope you guys/gals enjoyed the chapter, im not making any promises but ill get the next chapter to you as soon as possible, don't worry I'm not dissapearing ;) And also don't worry, because spyro WILL be featuring in the next chapter, wouldn't be much of a spyro fan-fic without him you know? R&R and thanks for reading.**

**Also I apolagise for any grammar or silly aesthetical mistakes I made; I wanted to get this to you guys as soon as possible, ill try and edit out any mistakes later but right now? sleep. Bye! :)**


	3. Chapter 3

**Hello everyone! Epideme here, so I finally got around to integrating Spyro and Cynder into the story, and at first i was unsure of their personalities, but I think I nailed it... probably. anyway let me know what you think; also i hate to admit that there are some 'mushy' parts in this chapter but hey, I was determined to crowbar that stuff in somewhere, and if it works out I might do more, we'll see how it goes Enjoy!**

**Additional: If I may be so bold to take a second of your time; to thank all of you for your motivational reviews, I consider them a fuel for my writing fire and an aid for my writing block, I mean, sure there are only seven (I'm not entirely sure If thats bad, standard or good for two chapters :P and the 8th comment doesn't count as it wins the award for being the most racist comment so far... yeah, so just don't...) But hey, every little helps, and quality over quantity; Thank you it means alot.**

**********Disclaimer: I own nothing except my characters. Other canon characters and stuff are owned by their respective companies.**

******************Exclaimer: I have edited this chapter just a little, made some changes to grammar and phrases, nothing too big; hope you like it :)**

* * *

-Chapter 3-

-Unexpected-

Cynder opened her eyes.

It was dark; she felt the cool refreshing breeze roll across her as she filled her lungs with chill air. The ground was soft on her wings and back, and she could feel the damp from the drizzle and wet grass, seeping through the uncovered parts of her leather-padded shirt.

Cynder was staring up at the partially clouded night sky, stars sometimes appearing from behind the heavy clouds, only momentarily, before disappearing behind more.

She sat up and wiped away a small pool of water that had accumulated in a fold of her leather shoulder-pad, the water dampened her linen shirt and her crimson underbelly and Byzantium scales became visible through the clinging fibres.

She sighed, between the damp and cold she wasn't feeling very happy but she would have to endure.

Cynder yawned and pulled her legs up into her chest, observing the tears in her leather trousers. She peered around in the gloom, and although there wasn't much ilumination her low-light vision allowed her to see enough to make out that she was sat on a grassy hilltop that ended behind her in a small cliff. The land around this small plinth of earth was mostly grassland, but there were a few large rocks that decorated the dark expanse of field, but after that, a dense treeline sliced through the grassy plain and carried on for quite a way, it was like this all around where she was sat. a lush, verdant grassy clearing, devoid of anything but rocks.

'_Where am I?' _Cynder asked herself.

The drizzle was becoming just a little bit heavier and Cynder attempted to use her wings as a sort of umbrella to keep the cold rain off her face and clothing, she peered up at a slightly obscured moon, poking through a gap in the clouds and thought:

'_And what happened…'_

Cynder's memory was a haze; Malefor; She remembered defeating Malefor… but after that, nothing. She'd just woken up here, feeling bruised and disorientated.

But Cynder still smiled regardless of her odd situation at the thought of such a great evil being banished from the dragon realms. hopefully forever; by none other than herself and Spyro... Spyro, where was he?

The moon was obscured and the light, dim, but Cynder still noticed something stirring a little ways from her grassy platform; there, leaned up against a moss covered boulder was another dragon, shifting ever so slightly as if just waking up. Cynder's groggy mind was slow on the uptake but it seemed that there was something familiar to her about the dragon's silhouette, her heart skipped a beat, and instinctively she leapt to her feet, ignoring the spray of water landing on her head from taking her raised wings down quickly.

She swivelled on the spot, tiny water droplets flew away from the surface of her clothing and exposed skin, which turning left and rushing to the cliff-edge of the grassy plinth, she leapt off at speed, spreading her wings to act as a sort of parachute before hitting the ground moderately hard. She sent up a small splash of water before taking a moment to steady herself then continuing

Cynder sprinted, vaulted a small bolder and lost her balance slightly, she stumbled, and would of smashed into the floor if she hadn't of corrected herself.

The other dragon was slowly becoming clearer as Cynder progressed through the heavy drizzle and mist; she could make out purple scales, a yellow underbelly and orange wing-membranes.

She quickened her pace, she knew who that blurred dragon was; how could she forget.

Spyro

Cynder was beginning to worry; she was getting closer and closer to what might be the love of her, damaged, and tainted life; all that they had been through when they had been bound with magical chain, the countless times they had almost died fighting together, the way they had saved the dragon realms together, all of their partnered actions had inevitably resulted in them developing a strong affection to each other. He was the only thing she had, and that went both ways.

But she'd be damned if she was going to lose Spyro now.

She was a few feet away now, her heart leapt as she saw Spyro was covered in cuts and bruises, on the places that weren't covered with clothing, his leather armour had a few massive tears, and to Cynder's horror, deep red stains surrounding them, even with her low-light vision it was still difficult to peer into the gashes to see how deep they were; she rushed to his side to investigate.

He groaned and opened his eyes, his deep purple eyes, they stared at her longingly, and Cynder noticed a smile spread across his snout

"It, it worked… it worked…" he croaked; his voice was barely a whisper, and Cynder struggled to hear over the sound of the rain, but she still didn't know what he was talking about.

Spyro placed a hand on the side of her face; she moved into it and embraced his paw with her own, she couldn't help but weep just a little, a brief second of bliss; Spyro was alive!

But for how long; Cynder was much closer to Spyro's wounds, and they were bad, he had lost a lot of blood and was steadily losing more; Cynder wondered how it had happened but realised that was best left for after she had saved him, she looked into his near lifeless eyes in a way which said: don't worry, it'll be ok.

Cynder unclipped the small pouch that was placed on her belt and felt around inside, she rummaged around for what felt like a very long time due to the direness of the situation, but eventually she felt the familiar angled shape of a red healing crystal. She took it out and placed it against the worst of the deep gashes, it glowed ominously and gave off a strange red corona and part of the crystals structure disintegrated; it now looked hollow and unfathomably fragile, all that remained was the stones angles, only the bare minimum was left to keep the crystal structurally sound; As this was happening the scaly skin around Spyro's wound closed slowly, he gave a small sigh of relief as the gash across his torso sealed.

Cynder placed what remained of the crystal near the next of the worst cuts, and watched the process happen again, the wound closed, and the delicate structure disintegrated; however to Cynder's dismay there was one more wound, it was the smallest out of the three, but Cynder only had one crystal and no other means of healing Spyro. The third wound was a slice that started centre chest and went up and over his right shoulder.

Cynder double checked her small inventory and only found a spare shirt; it would have to do. She tore it into strips with her deadly claws and used them to fashion a hap-hazard bandage that covered part of his wound.

Spyro looked like he was feeling a little better, his face was a little less drained of blood and he was able to talk clearly.

"Cynder?" he paused, he looked at her like she wasn't there, she suspected he may be delirious and that would be no surprise considering the amount of blood he lost, but she replied none the less

"Spyro it's me, I-I'm here, you've lost a lot of blood just relax and get your strength back.

Spyro smiled and reached out to gently pull her into a hug; Cynder accepted immediately and hugged him tightly before she whispered into her ear;

"I love you too"

Cynder just hugged him a little tighter and said nothing; she didn't know where she was or how she got there, but she was in total bliss that Spyro had acknowledged what she said before she remembered nothing else, the three words she had wanted to say so badly for a long time; and only did so when it was possible when those words could have been the last that she had ever said.

Spyro gently pulled out of the hug and looked at her directly; the look on his face was warm, like he wasn't in pain now that she was here.

"So where are we?" he said looking around, the rain was getting heavier and it was becoming hard to see to the edge of the field, but Spyro still squinted and tried to peer further than he could.

"I- I'm not sure" Cynder replied, sitting down beside Spyro.

"Well, how did we get here?"

"I don't know, before I healed you, you kept saying 'it worked'… well, what exactly did you do?"

Spyro took a long time to reply, but eventually said, "I can't remember, it's all… fuzzy. I remember we defeated Malefor, then, I tried to… I can't, I can't remember, but I remember what you whispered to me" Spyro said smiling warmly at her

Cynder returned the smile and kissed him gently on the cheek, causing him to blush. "We need to get back to Warfang, tell the guardians what happened and, well, just so we can live a little, I can't remember the last time we relaxed…" Cynder smiled at the thought, which was very true, they had spent a great deal of time combating darkness that threatened the dragon realms and had not had much time to be normal teenagers.

Spyro tried to stand up, but Cynder pushed him gently down.

"You need rest Spyro, well make camp here for the night and head out in the morning…"

Spyro said nothing, just extended his hand and looked at her like she had said something moronic.

"Cynder we don't have a tent, and I'm not sleeping in _this_" he chuckled, holding his paw out; letting it get drenched in rain "we need to get to the treeline and under the canopy" he paused and looked up and around before continuing; "plus were out in the open here, easy targets for Mirrorwings; and I'm too weak to fight"

Cynder sighed and shook her head at Spyro's witty remark. She stood up and offered him her hand, Spyro took it and hauled himself up, he then placed his arm over her shoulder to stabilize himself, and the couple headed into the treeline; which wasn't far away, and Cynder felt it very rewarding when the rain stopped hitting her but the canopy over her head.

They were about to continue further into the jungle when an ear-splitting crashing sound resonated throughout the jungle; the sound was impossible to pinpoint but it sounded as if it were somewhere behind them, on the other side of the grassy clearing.

Nothing followed the crashing sound but the ominous pitter-patter of the rain on the leaves above in the thick canopy.

"What in the guardian's names was that?" Spyro near-shouted

"It may have just been loud thunder?" Cynder replied, though she didn't sound entirely sure of herself.

"No, it couldn't have been, it was too short, and if this was a thunderstorm, there would be more strikes…"

To confirm his suspicions the two remained silent for a while, but no strikes sounded again, it was just the single booming sound.

"We should check it out… Spyro?" Cynder stated, turning to look at him; though she doubted that he would agree when he shook his head lazily.

"No, even with low-light vision it's still dark out here, I don't want to get lost in a jungle looking for something that might be dangerous; especially at night" Spyro paused then looked at her, smiling we'll wait till morning, and then we'll look"

Cynder sighed; her curiosity had got the better of her for a brief moment but Spyro was correct, this just wasn't the right time.

She adjusted Spyro to a slightly more comfortable position on her shoulders, he groaned in pain and Cynder could feel the warmth of Spyro's blood seep into her clothes around her leather shoulder pad; they needed to make camp soon. Cynder swapped Spyro to her other side, as to not make his remaining wound worse. They then slowly moved through the dense bushes that riddled the jungle floor.

There was no path or anything remotely like a trail here, so that left Cynder without a clue where she was going, she guessed she was just looking for a small, secluded clearing; and progress was slow with a semi unconscious Spyro draped over her shoulders for support. Cynder had admitted to herself that Spyro's plan of making camp under the cover of the jungle was a good idea, but it didn't mean that she had to like the plan; she was cold and her clothes were very damp, and the collected rain on all the leaves that she was brushing past didn't help, seeing as they just made her even more wet and cold.

And matters got worse when she misjudged stepping over a small ridge; she lost her balance and fell face first into the wet ground, she pulled her face out of the dirt and roared in frustration; she built up her inner strength and unleashed a powerful blast of wind that threw up a cloud of mud, dead leaves and vegetation and ripped a small fern out of the floor behind the cloud, sending it spiralling into darkness.

Cynder turned her head and looked guiltily at Spyro who was rubbing his head and wincing, his right arm hanging limp from his wound.

"Sorry…" she chuckled, but the chuckling didn't stop and eventually it turned into a small giggling fit, Spyro looked at her like she was mad before joining in slowly; before they knew it they were both laughing, wet cold, lost. But they were together, and happy.

"C-Cynder SHHHh-h" Spyro said, his speech disjointed by quiet, wheezing laughter; he was still feeling weak but the laughing eventually died down along with the hilarity of the situation.

"This doesn't look like such a bad place" Spyro whispered weakly looking around, not giggling any more, but still with a grin on his face. "We'll make camp here; I'll get a fire going and you could build something for us to lie on, out of tall grass or something, I know for a fact that you hate the cold and wet." He said, chuckling slightly

"Oh don't you bring that up again, it was freezing, and I nearly drowned!" Cynder claimed standing up, ready to go and find some suitable bedding, thinking back to the time when they had slept in a swamp

"Relax Cynder I was just teasing!" Spyro chimed friendly

"Well. I wasn't…" Cynder replied.

There wasn't any tall grass in this small opening that Cynder could see, so she walked over to an exotic looking bush with huge triangular shaped leaves with a strange rubbery texture, she reached out to grab one; they felt slightly soft and spongy.

'_Perfect_' she thought

Once she had stripped the bush clean of the strange leaves she went to work assembling a bed for the two to sleep on, Spyro had managed to get a fire going in a spot where the now heavy rain wasn't making it through the dense canopy, Cynder constructed the bed in a similar spot, near the fire and out of the rain.

She walked over to the bed and sat beside Spyro, who was carefully trying to take off the top half of his eviscerated leather armour to dry it, but he wasn't getting very far, the wound on his shoulder was bad and the armour was inherently difficult to remove.

She shuffled to sit behind Spyro and worked at helping him remove the armour.

Spyro relaxed and stopped trying to undo the leather straps; Cynder had it taken care of. Spyro admittedly had strong feelings for her, and had done for a long time, but as strong and heroic as he was, he was too weak to confess to her in fear that she would reject him, as much as he hated to admit it to himself; only when she said the words was he sure that she loved him back.

But then out of the blue a thought occurred that could only be described as a mood-killer; "Cynder, do you think Warfang survived? I mean we might just be going back to nothing" Spyro said softly, shivering slightly when the leather cuirass was removed from his torso. He winced at his wound which stung a little when one of the straps brushed against it.

Cynder sighed, "I don't know Spyro, what choice do we have though, we can't just not check it out; it, might be destroyed but I doubt it would mean everybody died, there would be survivors… stop worrying"

Spyro yawned and stretched; shaking a few drops of water from his orange wings then stared into her deep teal eyes, eyes that told so much, eyes that hid a dark and tainted past from the world, but Spyro knew better, knew that she was once a truly malevolent puppet under malicious control of a great evil; and he only hoped that such evil never touched her mind again, because it had left its mark; Cynder had often woke screaming, plagued by hellish nightmares of the things she had done against her will.

He spoke softly to her; "your right, it's probably fine, the guardians wouldn't have let the destruction of the dragon city happen," Spyro paused to place his armour by the fire and lie down on the bed, facing Cynder but not lying on his shoulder before continuing; "tomorrow we find our bearings and head into town, then we'll relax, it'll be like a vacation…"

Cynder cut in; "but first we check out what that crash was" she paused to glance in its supposed direction before continuing; "I'm not so sure about it; getting a bad vibe you know"

Spyro gave a small derivative snort as Cynder started to lie down next to him

"What?" Cynder pined

"Well, is this the same kind of 'bad vibe' you got when you thought a family of sheep was a raiding party?" Spyro asked, happily teasing her.

Cynder hissed angrily at Spyro's witty retort, snuggling against him as he chuckled feverishly

"Just teasing…"

"Yeah you do that a lot"

The couple just lay there, silent, listening to the rain on the canopy above their heads for a few peaceful minutes before Cynder noticed Spyro's gentle snoring. She looked over in his direction and admired the blank expressionless peace on his face, the wound on his shoulder was still bleeding but not as bad, it would need medical attention but she had done all she could. Cynder was just happy he was alive, but she hadn't thought about how they had gotten here much, the two of them still couldn't remember, but she told herself not to worry, and pushed all the negative thoughts away to the back of her mind; she was with her companion, reunited and alive.

Cynder wasn't going to let some bizarre event and a strange crashing noise change her day for the worst; she took one final look at Spyro and closed her tired eyes.

* * *

Heavy breathing was the only sound that punctured the silence. Everyone else was either too scared or shocked to speak, but furious, exhausted and feverish eyes stared at the huge titanium alloy door in disbelief for several moments; before the person they belonged to screamed in anger.

Edward was tired, Edward was shocked, but most of all Edward was filled with a disturbingly powerful rage, at Kelmore, at his son for meddling where he shouldn't, but at this current time his anger was mostly at the doors operator. He strode purposefully to the man and grabbed him strongly by the collar, the man was as white as a sheet; his sub-machine gun clattered to the floor from limp, shaking hands, he was in every way scared shitless of Edward.

"My son is in there, why did you close the door?" Edwards's voice was quiet, soft but shaky, like he was trying to supress a great anger, all the while with a forced smile on his face which made him look creepy bordering on insane.

The doorman stuttered for a second before answering; "p-p-protocol dictates tha…" Edward cut him off.

"Protocol…" Edward laughed a short maniacal laugh "you want to know about protocol son? Well, you know what the protocol is when a member of staff any of the facility's is discharged of his or her duties?" Edward spoke quickly, and feverishly, he didn't know how much sleep he'd gotten round the last week, but it was minimal.

"N-no… sir" the frightened man stammered in reply.

"Well then, I suppose you'll just have to find out if you can't get this door open right fucking now!" Edward screamed the last words right into the man's face, who proceeded to stumble hurriedly towards the door controls, leaving his gun on the floor.

Edward straightened the collar on his lab coat and moved towards the door, picking up the Q4 SMG from off the floor and taking a moment to check it.

'_Pfft, safeties not even off, why we hire these people…' _Edward thought to himself.

A long moment passed and the door had still not opened, Edward slowly turned his head and glared at the incompetent operator intimidatingly.

The area in front of the large door was now the centre of attention in level five, surrounded by muttering scientist and soldier alike.

The man was sweating at the brow and furiously tapping at the console beneath the screen which controlled the large door. He looked around and met Edwards gaze with a panicky 'what me' look on his face

"What, is taking, So long?" Edward asked through gritted teeth.

"T-The biohazard detection scanners are scanning hazardous materials, I can't open it manually and…" The man stammered

Edward turned fully toward him and cocked the sub-machine gun "…And?"

"I-I don't know the doors override code, I-I was only posted here the other day, I only just got my level five clearance yesterday" the man answered, looking nervously at the gun that was pointed in his direction.

Edward paused then walked towards the poor man "out of my way"

"I can do this sir, just give me the override code" the man said confidently, moving back to the panel

But Edward's sleep-deprived mind had had enough, he raised the gun slowly, looking at the man's shocked face as he turned to see a barrel of a gun that was trained on him; Edward fired; the .41 round tore a chunk of flesh the size of a Ping-Pong ball from the man's forearm. He screamed a horrible scream that pierced the silence of the tram room; several people that were just hanging around, curious of Edwards actions moved swiftly away to an incoming tram, in fear of being shot themselves.

Edward dropped the gun to the floor and moved to push the screaming man out of the way, who upon being pushed fell to the ground in pain, blood soaking his clothes and a part of Edward's lab coat.

Edward said nothing, he just moved peacefully to the console beneath the screen and pressed a button, he leaned in a little closer before saying "Rai, initiate override for blast door five; code: five, seven, two f…" he stopped mid-sentence and sighed in frustration before addressing the screaming man politely.

"Would you please shut-up? I can't hear myself think!" Edward turned toward one of his security team equipped with mark-3 exo-power armour and said; "get this waste of resources to an infirmary…" the massive suit of armour said nothing, simply walked over to the wounded man and yanked him up as easily as if he were made of feathers and balloons; before dragging him to a docked tram.

If anybody was fazed by the man's screams they did well to hide it, but Edward hid nothing, he didn't bat an eyelid, just continued with the override code.

"_Code accepted"_ a disembodied computerized voice uttered.

Edward walked and stood in front of the large metal threshold, picking his 'new' gun up along the way. There was a noisy mechanical whirring and the first layer of the titanium blast door slid back into its recesses.

Some of the people backed away, fearful of a potential biohazard, but others let their curiosity get the better of them; moving in for a closer look, but still staying wary of Edward.

The second layer opened. Edward's eye twitched and the rest of his security team gathered behind him, weapons at the ready; ready for a threat.

The third and final layer of door opened. Edward's gun clattered to the floor; as did most of the guns of his security team followed by a series of surprised gasps and swearing.

"You have to be fucking joking" Edward said to no one in particular.

The door had opened, and there was a small part of corridor beyond that, but where the rest of the corridor should have been; there was a cavernous space of rock, dirt and a few loose cables hanging from the earthy ceiling.

The sterile, clean white surfaces and bright lights of the red-zone labs were just gone, as if they had flickered out of existence leaving behind a series of dark earthy tunnels; the bright light from the tram room carried into the beginning of the cavernous labyrinth but died very quickly, swallowed up by earthy walls and oppressive darkness.

Just a little ways beyond the threshold, there was a heavy duty crate, or a quarter of one anyway, and it was severely wrecked like someone had let off a grenade inside of it, but it was teetering on the edge of corridor suspended above the compressed earth; around it there was a strange white glowing metal spattered around, the same glowing metal that Edward saw coat his son; who was no longer there.

It was just gone; His child, the majority of his life's work, data, unfinished projects, resources; all of it.

Edward didn't know why or how it happened; he just walked through the door to the edge of the spatter marks of the uneupentium, being careful not to tread in any.

A disjointed sigh escaped his mouth; Edward was feeling so many emotions; confusion, frustration, desperation, anger, but above all fear, the red zone, or maybe just a part of it was gone, it was just gone. Where had it gone? Things don't just go; that's not possible, there was not even a trace that the network of corridors of level five in facility 2 had even existed, like it was still being constructed, but there may still be parts that were left

Edward sighed and turned with purpose, frustration all over his face, but when he approached the first of the guards, a wave of, perhaps fake confidence replaced the frustration.

"Sir" the guard addressed Edward in a gruff, deep Russian accent, the man looked into his early fifties, he was bold and had green eyes, or would have, if one wasn't horribly scared over, the man also didn't seem fazed by any of Edwards actions, he was in fact one of the few guards that had kept hold of their weapons at the sight of the shocking event that had befallen the red-zone.

"What's your name son?" Edward was now about a foot away from the man, straightening up his lab coat in a compulsive manor

"Colonel Ivan Kazimir"

"Ivan, I need you to contact a hazmat team and get them to clean that mess up" Edward gestured with his thumb to the spattered uneupentium. "Then I want you to get a team together and scout out the… That" he again gestured with his thumb but directed at the earthy corridor. "See if there are any of the labs left and report if any of them are compromised and exterminate any threats" Edward finished and walked past Ivan, who nodded at him; before ordering a few other guards to check out the entrances to the labs at the sides of the tram room, then to report back to him.

Ivan took a facility issue SRRC device – short range radio communication device, essentially an over glorified walkie talkie; out of a pocket inside his combat armour before ordering a hazmat team down to level five 'priority one'

Edward continued past to a prominent, cold looking Natalka, who swivelled and turned to walk with Edward, who strode briskly to a tram station with an incoming transport.

"quite a show Edward, what do you plan to do with that young man" Natalka asked, her silvery ponytail was now loose and her hair flowed freely around her head, it was quite long and messy and Edward watched, amused and slightly bashful at her attempts to rectify it, but he replied none the less.

"Oh I don't know, strip of his rank and clearance and have him submitted as a test subject I suppose…" Edward said coolly, almost as if he had sadistically sent innocent people to their horrifying doom on a daily basis

" I see… and what do you intend to do about that bigger problem we have" The tram had arrived, and a team of people in almost comically yellow hazardous material suits disembarked, carrying various gear from Geiger counters to over glorified mops, Edward and Natalka let them past before embarking together whilst Edward replied again.

"bigger is an understatement, I think biggest would be better, biggest problem we've had in a while, at least since facility one went up" Edward's mind briefly skimmed to Kelmore, but then away again; he had bigger problem's to worry about "well we need to find out what happened, we've got to get our feet on the ground before we can start solving this problem…" the tram doors started to close, but were halted by an out-of-breath Ivan sticking his arm to block it; he puffed a few times before saying "Edward, we've assessed that the labs are still connected to the entrances on the far sides of either side of this room, the other entrances offered a glimpse of corridor but access to them without risking a cave-in is impossible" Ivan puffed nearly all in one breath; he nearly looked excited.

"Very good colonel, have teams scout out those two segments of stable facility, see if they connect to any more corridors that would otherwise be inaccessible. Take all the men and weapons you need I want this place secure"

"Yes sir" Ivan said gruffly, jogging back towards his group of soldiers

The tram doors were about to close again but this time it was Edward who stopped them, the tram beeped angrily at Edward before its doors all receded " Natalka, I need you to a team of engineers; anybody who has clearance for this level, hell port them in from facility 3 if you have to, and get them make the caverns structurally sound, as soon as possible."

Natalka walked out of the tram, turned to face Edward, opened her mouth to say something but Edward cut her off.

"as soon as you've done that I want you to round up every scientist with a level five clearance, we need to find out what happened, I want four teams, I want to know what happened to the labs and, my, my son… I want to know where a large chunk of my facility has gone, I want a team working on getting it back and I want a team to get the other teams coffee; damn I need a cup of coffee…" Edward said, rubbing his bloodshot eyes

"Are you feeling alright Edward?" Natalka asked

"OF COURSE I'm not feeling alright, I've gone more than two nights without a sufficient amount of REM sleep, maybe three, I don't know, it doesn't matter… Vincent I, he, he didn't deserve this he, oh god, fuck!" he paused and feverishly rubbed his eyes with shaky hands, like there was something stuck in them, like he was unfathomably worried about something. He looked up with red rimmed, mad eyes at Natalka, who was looking just a little bit frightened. "Why are you still standing here, I gave you a job to do!"

Natalka sighed before replying with a matter-of-fact tone; "I was going to ask what you are going to do, why get me to do all of it?"

"I, I need to talk to the director, he needs to know what happened…" Edward paused and looked onward past Natalka, stared like something was there, then looked back at Natalka shaking his head.

"Edward you're delirious, you know you can't speak to the director like this you need sleep; what do you think his reaction would be if he were to listen to you cutting off every now and again, not explaining things properly because of your impaired cognitive function" Natalka said firmly, nearly instructing Edward.

"I will take care of it all, but I'm not talking to the director" Natalka paused "he scares me"

Edward just stood there in the door of the tram room nodding for a few seconds, swaying loosely like a plant in a midsummer breeze.

Natalka looked at him quizzically "you want me to get someone to escort you? Make sure you don't, pass out?"

"No… no I'm fine I'll… I'm fine" Edward said confidently, as confident as a sleep deprived mad megalomaniac could be anyway.

"Ok, I'll come wake you if anything happens" Natalka said walking away, pulling a SRRC device out of her jacket.

Edward stumbled to a chair and crashed into it, finally allowing the tram to close and begin to ascend. There were a few other people in the tram, a blond short haired man with blue eyes, was wearing a lab coat and slouching in his chair, looking out into the darkness of the tram tunnel, as the metal and glass box ascended through levels of the facility, the man looked oddly familiar in a way Edward didn't know. There was a girl, twenties maybe, doing something on a tablet, writing a report maybe, talking with family in the living area of the facility, it didn't matter, Edward didn't know them, but they knew him. Everybody here knew him; he was in charge of this facility.

They feared him; they respected him, the doorman had definitely feared him. Edward felt a strange pang of guilt at the thought of the poor man whose arm he'd ruined. He moved the thought aside; now was not the time to feel guilty.

The tram ascended to the top level of the facility and Edward had done well resisting the urge to fall asleep in his comfy chair and blood stained lab coat.

The tram chimed and the door to it slid open, Edward tried to get up but his tired body refused, and Edward was surprised when the blond man offered him his hand,, confused too, it was if he hadn't even notice the man stand; he was just there to help in the blink of an eye. Edward accepted and took the hand, grunting as he yanked himself up. The gesture was nothing really, but it meant a lot to Edward.

"Thank you" Edward said softly

"Don't worry about it" he replied; the man's voice was strange for some reason, it was so soft and soothing, yet firm and commanding.

The two walked out of the tram, there were people; workers, scientists, engineers, milling around, sitting down waiting for others perhaps. Edward was feeling drowsy, a few times he nearly fell over from exhaustion but he still turned and addressed the man, who was close behind.

"What's your name?"

"Dr Memor" the man said softly, it seemed odd, the man was behind him, but the quiet voice seemed to come from other directions too. Strange, it must have been because he was tired and slightly delirious.

"You have a first name?" Edward further asked; the two were getting close to the corridors which lead to Edwards living quarters.

Memor remained silent, Edward was getting a few strange looks from some of the people who he passed while conversing with the blond haired man. It must have been the blood on Edwards's lab coat coupled with the way he sometimes stumbled like a drunkard.

Edward felt weak by the time he got to his door, the familiar grid of light swept over him and flashed green; the light hurt Edwards eyes and he went to rub them, stepping through the small threshold as he did so.

He turned to talk to Memor, to thank him for helping. But he was gone, he wasn't there, he had probably gone his own way without Edward noticing in his sleep deprived state.

Edward shambled through his living space into his bedroom, which is where something odd happened; as he passed the doorway to his bathroom, he glimpsed in, and swore for just a microsecond; that Memor's reflection was In the mirror, he was standing behind Edward, looming over his shoulder; his face blurred slightly but blue eye's still clear as day.

Edward did a double take, looking away and looking back, and Memor was gone; No longer in the mirror, no longer anywhere for that matter. Edward looked around, and furiously rubbed his eyes again.

Edward felt a sting of fear, what was happening to him? He had never even seen or heard of a doctor Memor, and he wasn't the type who forgot a face; it bothered him greatly now that he was seeing the man out of the corner of his eye, only to see him disappear when he looked back.

And it was strange that he seemed familiar to him, but Edward could not for the life of him figure out where he had seen the man before.

But he stopped thinking about it, and then he stopped thinking about anything as soon as his head hit the pillow.

* * *

**Oh dear, poor Edward all losing his mind, still not as bad as some of the things to come ;) guess you'll just have to wait and see.**

**speaking of which, i honestly dont know if there will be a fixed time schedule for releasing chapters, but so far none of them have been over three months, which is a ridiculous amount of time to even consider waiting i know; i'm hoping to cut down on that ****Exponentially, my end goal being perhaps a month at most between chapters. I'm not making any promises though.**

**I hope you enjoyed this chapter, it was a bit sketchy in some places and there might be a few grammar mistakes for which i apologise, But other than that thank you for taking the time to read it :) So long!**


End file.
